Tom Toles for March 20, 2018

For someone who protests innocence everyday all day It sure acts guilty as H___.

Honestly, it’s not just that really annoying bug and all his twittering noise. Mueller has to be like a cat in a box full of mice. So much scurrying, so many targets, so much to do at once! The mind is boggled.

SCORCHING HIS WINGS – {1.40 limericks}

This moth plays a dangerous game

when flitting too near to the flame

without asbestos.

Mueller has blessed us

by bringing The Donald to shame

by scorching his wings

while America sings.

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{Off the cartoon’s topic:}

HE TWEETS IN FURY AND FEAR – {rhyme}

His tweets fly like nuclear missiles,

while his lawyers write frantic epistles

to protect The Donald who bristles

in fury and fear that he’s caught,

that his tenure has come to naught, -

- unless he can pull off dismissals

of folks in positions to squeal

in words which divulge and reveal

this or that Trumpian deal,

thereby his fate to seal.

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Get a flyswatter…and a can of Raid!

Will he dare to try buying Mueller off?

I think of Trump more along the line that Jonathan Edwards had in mind when he described a spider and a flame.

Trump has never had a real job. Unfortunately, the one thing he’s had plenty of practice at is avoiding investigation, stalling cases, using lawyers to SLAPP sue plaintiffs and getting away by putting more money on the scale of justice than the other guy. For example. $25,000 to Pam Bondi, Florida’s AG, to stop investigation into Trump University or $25,000 to Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., to drop the case against Ivanka and Don Jr for misrepresenting the Trump SoHo project to investors. Nunes already stopped the House investigation, who is next…

Trump acts like a guilty person.

All of this and the result is Trump emasculating the Republican party. Trump’s reaction to the flame has grown more irate by the day. The fury over his plight erupted in a series of attacks on Mueller, culminating in an anguished tweet lambasting an investigation he believes is part of an establishment plot to destroy him. The attorneys are discussing topics investigators are allowed to inquire of the President. Trump’s defense lawyer inside the White House, Ty Cobb, has been downplaying Mueller’s need for the president’s testimony and the depth of the investigation. Mueller is not going to wrap up soon, and he has Trump in a box. Toppling Mueller, with its constitutional implication of a President trying to evade accountability, would make the uproar following former FBI Director James Comey’s firing last year pale by comparison. After all, jettisoning the former FBI director demonstrably made Trump’s political and legal exposure over the Russia investigation much worse. All Trump can do is advance conspiracy theories that the Russia investigation is an FBI plot to delegitimize his presidency.

One of Trump’s “defenses” is that certain FBI agents donated to Democratic campaigns. Even including Hillary Clinton! (Of course, Trump ALSO contributed to Clinton’s Senate campaign…….)

I see Mueller as less of a flame and more of a bug zapper.

Still following Adam Smith, it is also wise to attend to the “vile maxim” to which the “masters of mankind” are dedicated: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people” — a doctrine known otherwise as bitter and incessant class war, often one-sided, much to the detriment of the people of the home country and the world. – Dr. Noam Chomsky

Go to the light…